This is the top three AoS lists for Duckstravaganza 2: Battle For the Pond that took place in the US on the 21st and 22nd of October. It saw 36players vying to be crowned champion in a 5-game tournament.

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The Top Three AoS Lists

Army Faction: Disciples of Tzeentch
– Army Subfaction: Guild of Summoners
– Grand Strategy: Master of Destiny
– Triumphs: Inspired

LEADER
1 x Lord of Change (380)
– General
– Command Traits: Daemonspark
– Staff of Tzeentch and Rod of Sorcery
– Artefacts: Nine-Eyed Tome
– Spells: Levitate
1 x Magister (140)
– Spells: Arcane Suggestion
1 x Magister (140)
– Spells: Shield of Fate

BATTLELINE
11 x Blissbarb Archers (170)
10 x Kairic Acolytes (120)
– Kairic Adept
– Cursed Blade and Arcanite Shield
– Scroll of the Dark Arts
– Vulcharc
– 3 x Cursed Glaive and Arcanite Shield
10 x Kairic Acolytes (120)
– Kairic Adept
– Scroll of the Dark Arts
– Vulcharc
– Cursed Blade and Arcanite Shield
– 3 x Cursed Glaive and Arcanite Shield
10 x Tzaangors (180)
– Twistbray
– Icon Bearer
– Brayhorn Blower
– 2 x Tzaangor Mutant
– Pair of Savage Blades and Vicious Beak
– Pair of Savage Blades

ENDLESS SPELL
1 x Umbral Spellportal (80)
1 x Burning Sigil Of Tzeentch (70)
1 x Suffocating Gravetide (30)

OTHER
6 x Varanguard (280)
– 6 x Fellspear

TOTAL POINTS: (1990/2000)

Kieron Bailey: With the prevalence of Khorne and Null Myriad in the meta, combined with the challenge to magical dominance offered by Seraphon and various Nagash builds, the number of Tzeentch lists in the wild has dropped off somewhat as this GHB continues. One person who has continued to push around the servants of the Architect of Fate is the Lord of Change himself, Kaleb Walters. But while this list does still opt for Guild of Summoners for an extra battle tactic on command (summoning a Lord of Change), Kaleb’s customary Krondspine is absent from this list, replaced instead with 6 Varanguard.

In terms of the overall army construction, the army is a one-drop, allowing Kaleb to give away first in many matchups, get the enemy in range and then blast them with spells, maybe get the double and then do it all over again. The Varanguard might be able to activate three times in two turns due to their warscroll ability Relentless Killers. Being a one-drop is always a dilemma for Tzeentch as they need the casts to get the summoning points, but don’t really want to have that extra drop if they can avoid it. Kaleb’s elegant solution is to take two Magisters on Foot who can potentially cast two times each. Add the two casts from the Kairics, the two casts from the Lord of Change (with full re-rolls thanks to the Nine-Eyed Tome), the autocast Sigil from Arcane Armies and three fate points from Daemonspark, that’s twelve fate points to bring in that Lord of Change with.

The spells chosen also are a nod to the anti-magic of Khorne and Null Myriad as two out of three affect the Tzeentch units, therefore no spell ignores can be made. Shield of Fate can be put on the Varanguard, meaning that they have a 4+ ward against mortal wounds and a 5+ against all other wounds AND a spell ignore of a 4+ if the spell is cast while Kaleb has seven or more Destiny Dice. Add a Mystic Shield and All Out Defense and those Varanguard are a nightmare to get through. The chosen spell that affects others is the very flexible Arcane Suggestion that can shut off commands, subtract 1 from hit and wound rolls or subtract 1 from save rolls, maximising the impact of the charging Varanguard.

Other units that Kaleb have taken all complement the Varanguard well, with 42 ranged shots pummelling any screens and then 43 attacks from the run and charge Tzaangor finishing off whatever is left. While the Varanguard are not Disciples of Tzeentch so can’t auto charge with Destiny Dice, they certainly won’t have to be committed to taking out any chaff.

The list might be frustrated somewhat by hordes, but Suffocating Gravetide will help with that, in addition to the Sigil of Tzeentch and Bolt of Change from either of the Magisters popping up Spawns within 3″ of units that take damage. While the Spawns themselves probably won’t do a tonne of damage, they will pin those hordes in place if they aren’t killed in the ensuing combat phase.

All in all, a great twist on a Tzeentch list, congratulations to Kaleb and I’m now off to get some Varanguard off eBay!

Army Faction: Orruk Warclans
– Army Type: Ironjawz
– Army Subfaction: Bloodtoofs
– Grand Strategy: Waaagh!
– Triumphs: Inspired

LEADER
1 x Orruk Warchanter (120)
– Warbeats: Fixin’ Beat
1 x Orruk Weirdnob Shaman (90)
– Spells: Hoarfrost
1 x Megaboss on Maw-krusha (450)*
– General
– Command Traits: Hulking Brute
– Boss Choppa and Rip-toof Fist
– Artefacts: Destroyer
1 x Orruk Warchanter (120)*
– Warbeats: Get ’Em Beat
1 x Skragrott, the Loonking (230)*

BATTLELINE
6 x Orruk Gore-gruntas (170)*
– Gore-grunta Boss
6 x Orruk Gore-gruntas (170)*
– Gore-grunta Boss
– Jagged Gore-hacka
10 x Orruk Brutes (140)*
– Brute Boss
– Jagged Gore-hacka
– 2 x Gore-choppa

CORE BATTALIONS:
*Battle Regiment

TOTAL POINTS: (1970/2000)

Roland Rivera: Here’s an interesting Ironjawz list earning a podium result, which have been few and far between for the faction of late. Interestingly, it does not feature any of the units in the new Ironjawz supplement. What it does feature, however, is 4 big scary combat units in the Maw-krusha, 10 Brutes, and 2 units of 6 Gore-gruntas. Those units all have a ton of hitting power, and will put a hole in your opponent’s army if you deliver them properly.

The big combat units are complemented by an interesting selection of support Heroes. Warchanters are no surprise, of course, but a Weirdnob lets the list make use of primal dice offensively by giving the list a Hail Mary shot at Hoarfrost, which can be quite a potent offensive buff. Furthermore, it features an interesting Ally choice in Skragrott, which is decently durable, helps ease the burden on the list’s command points and has an interesting offensive spell.

The list is a bit light on chaff and other complementary units, but who needs that when you can just crash into the enemy with overwhelming force? That’s the approach this list took, and it seems to have done well.

Army Faction: Kharadron Overlords
– Subfaction: Grundstok Expeditionary Force
– Grand Strategy: Acceptable Profit Margin
– Triumph: Inspired

LEADERS
Aether-Khemist (100)*
Aether-Khemist (100)*
Aetheric Navigator (100)*
– Artefacts of Power: Aetheric Nullifier
Endrinmaster with Dirigible Suit (170)**
– General
– Command Traits: Entrenchment Expert
– Artefacts of Power: Arcane Tome

BATTLELINE
Grundstok Gunhauler (170)*
– Sky Cannon
Grundstok Gunhauler (170)**
– Sky Cannon
Grundstok Gunhauler (170)**
– Sky Cannon
Grundstok Thunderers (480)**
– Gunnery Sergeant
– 3 x Honour Bearer
– 3 x Grundstok Mortar
– 3 x Aethercannon
– 3 x Aetheric Fumigator
– 3 x Decksweeper
Grundstok Thunderers (480)**
– Gunnery Sergeant
– 3 x Honour Bearer
– 3 x Grundstok Mortar
– 3 x Aethercannon
– 3 x Aetheric Fumigator
– 3 x Decksweeper

CORE BATTALIONS
*Warlord
**Battle Regiment

TOTAL POINTS: 1940/2000

Carl Stokes: So this list is very much the classic approach to the Grundstock Regiment of Renown. You’ve got the thunderers, the gunhaulers to tote them around, and the khemists to turn them into unstoppable killing machines. Interestingly, there’s no admiral in the list, but they’re not very important here since you don’t have a flagship. A fast flying endrimmaster is an interesting addition, but since arcane tome lets him cast mystic shield on the thunderers and allows KO to get that sweet sweet magical dominance battle tactic, he’s an excellent dwarf-of-all-trades that can provide some flexibility in an otherwise very straightforward list.

The mechanics of this list are very straightforward and honestly, not particularly interesting. The army moves insanely fast (pre-nerf) and shoots harder than anything else in the game. A 50% chance to double the shots of 15 thunderers allows KO to ace basically any unit in the game. And then they get to try for double shots again during unleash hell…

What’s much more interesting is looking at the matchups and seeing what conclusions we can draw about this style of army and the KO book as a whole.

It’s no secret that KO is an extremely powerful book in a game that heavily emphasizes asymmetric threat extension (I hurt you and you’re not allowed to hurt me back) and movement (objectives, battle tactics, etc). This army of renown exemplifies the best of both worlds, where the cheapest boat in the book can ferry the largest threat in the book anywhere they need to go.

So let’s see how this played out:
Darkwalkers is an extremely interesting matchup where Frank would have had to do an excellent job balancing the removal of extremely mobile chaff units while still keeping his movement tight to avoid the ol’ “shaman rips a unit out of position where it then gets eaten by something scary” play that BoC specialize in. Here, I could see the flying endrinmaster really pulling his weight, being able to clear out ungor units while the thunderer blocks dare anything to get in blastin range. Gunhaulers are also excellent here, as they’re fantastic and blowing up squishy infantry units/characters.

Slaves to Darkness is an honest army (except for Belakor). Strong saves, good melee, and horribly unprepared for this KO build. Varanguard can’t do much against a double volley (possibly quadruple after unleash hell) from the thunderers, and gunhaulers can clear screens (with the endrinmaster).
Ironjawz, being the only loss, is also not surprising in the slightest. KO, as a book, is very susceptible to fast chunky melee threats, and that’s exactly what IJ are. Frank’s list doesn’t really play for the double turn and KO shooting is relatively short ranged, which means that being doubled by a Mawkrusha and friends could easily result in an unstoppable green tide sweeping away poor innocent dawi. IJ have enough movement and shenanigans to end up in combat immediately, and even a few surviving pigs can be an enormous threat to KO.

Slaanesh can’t really deal with massed 3+ armor units that outmove, outshoot, and outcompete them for objectives. D3 MW from temptation dice don’t matter to a 30 wound thunderer unit that just removes your army immediately.

And finally, seraphon can pose some trouble for traditional KO that rely on the admiral and maybe one khemist to make the army hum along. This is not traditional KO. I’d imagine pretty much anything seraphon brought to the table just got immediately removed by the thunderers and that sprinkling some mortal wounds around the units simply couldn’t reduce their efficacy in a meaningful way.

In short, although GW recognized that this army of renown was horribly unbalanced and made some sweeping changes to their power, it’s nice to see that we didn’t end up in a “10th ed Aeldari” situation with AoS. Good work to Admiral Sylvester for upholding the honor of the fleet and congratulations on a very successful Grundstock Expedition!

Army Faction: Fyreslayers
– Army Subfaction: Greyfyrd
– Grand Strategy: Masters of the Forge
– Triumphs: Inspired

LEADER
1 x Auric Runemaster (130)
– Prayers: Heal
1 x Arch-Revenant (Elthwin’s Thorns) (310)*
1 x Auric Runefather on Magmadroth (360)**
– General
– Command Traits: Blood of the Berzerker
– Artefacts: Master Rune of Unbreakable Resolve
– Mount Traits: Coal-heart Ancient
1 x Battlesmith (150)**
– Artefacts: Nulsidian Icon
1 x Auric Runemaster (130)**
– Artefacts: Volatile Brazier
– Prayers: Heal
1 x Auric Flamekeeper (90)***
– Artefacts: Arcane Tome

BATTLELINE
10 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Bladed Slingshields (150)**
– Fyresteel War-pick and Bladed Slingshield
15 x Hearthguard Berzerkers (160)***
– Berzerker Broadaxe
10 x Vulkite Berzerkers with Bladed Slingshields (150)***
– Fyresteel War-pick and Bladed Slingshield

INVOCATION
1 x Molten Infernoth (50)

TERRAIN
1 x Magmic Battleforge (0)

OTHER
5 x Gossamid Archers (Elthwin’s Thorns) (310)*

CORE BATTALIONS:
*Regiment of Renown
**Warlord
***Wizard-finders of Andtor

TOTAL POINTS: (2000/2000)

Kevin Lathers: This list is a what I like to call a “dual threat” list. A big block of Hearthguard Berserkers (HGB) to hold down an objective or two (dependent on map) and a Runefather with all the things in order to make him a single turn absolute monster where he will kill almost anything in the game.

This allows the list to function as a sort of split pushing list or as a castle army and capable of fluidly shifting between either. If the shield vulkites and/or HGB can shield the runefather until he has the right opening, he can remove the key pieces of the opponents army in one round of combat.

Of course, the list will struggle against anything with multiple smaller threats or anything that can not only ignore wards, but then effectively do huge damage to the HGB to instantly lift them (such as Sigvald!).

The inclusion of Elthwin’s thorns, instead of a second flamekeeper or Grimhold exile (run+charge on the HGB), is clearly for easy tactics. Fyreslayers struggle immensely with tactics and this can go a long way to shoring that up while also providing a mobile threat piece that opponents can’t just roam around doing whatever it wants.

Final Tournament Placings

To view all of the results for the tournament please follow the link below to Best Coast Pairings

https://www.bestcoastpairings.com/event/PB43q2UZ9s